Just a Family Affair

by Veronica Henry

  ‘Happy birthday. And for Christ’s sake, open it quickly,’ James muttered to his brother, thrusting a bottle of vintage Veuve at Mickey as he deposited the car seat on the kitchen table. Lucy promptly picked it up and put it on the floor. Percy had once rocked his chair so hard it had fallen off the kitchen work top, a fact James never seemed to remember. She popped open the buckle and scooped Percy out. He promptly puked over her.

  ‘Welcome to my world,’ said Caroline, puffing with exertion, even though there were only three steps up to the front door of Honeycote House. She was terribly unfit.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Lucy reassured her, dabbing at her cardigan with a tea towel. ‘It’s only a little posset.’

  James looked as if he might be sick himself. Mickey sniffed, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘I think Connie might have done a poo.’

  ‘Your turn,’ said Caroline to her husband.

  ‘How can it be my turn?’ asked James acidly. ‘I changed her just before we came out.’

  ‘Well, I changed her fifty-nine times last week. So you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Lucy, popping Percy back into his seat and holding out her hand. ‘Come on, Connie.’

  ‘You’re a saint.’ Caroline flopped into the big chair at the head of the table. She had on a black wrap dress that had fitted perfectly once but was now two sizes too small. As soon as she sat down the fabric strained, revealing hold-up black stockings and an impressive cleavage. Mickey’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  ‘It’s OK. I’ve been there.’ Lucy grinned in response. ‘It must run in the family. Mickey didn’t change a single nappy when my lot were little.’

  ‘Quite right. Women’s work.’ Mickey worked the cork out of the bottle of champagne. It flew obligingly across the room. Caroline promptly picked it up and threw it back at Mickey, who ducked.

  ‘I know you’re only trying to wind me up,’ she shouted. ‘But there’s no need.’ And she promptly burst into tears.

  Oh dear, thought Lucy.

  ‘Nappies? Baby wipes?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Shit!’ Caroline wailed. ‘I forgot the changing bag. James, you’ll have to go home and get it.’

  James already had his paw around a chilled glass of Veuve Clicquot.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ll phone Patrick and Mandy. They can stop off at the supermarket in Eldenbury on their way through. Connie can go without for half an hour.’

  ‘She’ll piddle on your tiles,’ warned James.

  ‘She won’t be the first,’ said Lucy cheerfully, ‘and I’m sure she won’t be the last.’

  Once Connie had been divested of her soiled nappy and everyone had a drink, Georgina bounded in. Georgina, it was safe to say, did not have her finger on the pulse of fashion. She really didn’t care about clothes, just threw on whatever was closest to hand. Today that was an outsize rugby shirt (Lucy didn’t like to ask whose), a denim miniskirt, opaque tights and pink clogs. Her hair was tied up in two stubby bunches.

  ‘Glad to see you’ve dressed for the occasion.’ Mickey kissed his daughter absently on the head and handed her a glass.

  ‘You should have seen what I had on earlier,’ retorted Georgie. ‘Anyway, it’s just Sunday lunch, isn’t it? No big deal.’ She relented, grinning, and thrust a parcel at her father. ‘Happy birthday, Dad. Sorry about the crap wrapping paper.’

  Mickey duly unwrapped it. It was a book.

  ‘Fifty Places to See Before You Die?’ Mickey raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to take that.’

  ‘I thought it was about time you and Mum did something,’ declared Georgina. ‘When’s the last time you stepped foot outside Honeycote?’

  ‘In case you’d forgotten, I’m forking out for your university fees at the moment,’ Mickey shot back. ‘Which means we’d be lucky to afford a day trip to Weston.’

  ‘But thank you, sweetheart.’ Lucy shot her husband a warning look, not wanting dissension amongst the troops. She’d almost forgotten what it was like when they all got together. And they weren’t even all here yet.

  ‘Wow!’ said Mandy. ‘I had no idea. Barbie or the Little Mermaid. Which do you think?’

  Patrick rolled his eyes. They were in the middle of the supermarket in Eldenbury, following an SOS call from Lucy. It was astonishing, he thought, how Mandy could turn the most mundane of shopping trips into a retail experience. She was dithering over the choice of nappies as if she was choosing a bracelet in Tiffany’s.

  ‘Can’t you just get plain ones?’

  ‘That’s boring!’ Mandy reached out a decisive hand, and Patrick sighed with relief. ‘The Little Mermaid, I think. Or maybe I should get both.’

  ‘No!’

  Mandy gave him a reproachful look.

  ‘They won’t go to waste. She’ll use them.’

  Patrick smiled, despite himself. Mandy could justify any purchase on God’s earth.

  ‘Come on, then.’

  He went to walk off, then realized that she was staring at the rack of baby clothes with a strange look in her eyes.

  ‘Mandy?’

  ‘Aren’t they sweet?’

  ‘Those are too small for Constance. Or even Percy.’ He sensed he would have to be firm.

  ‘I know . . .’ She trailed off wistfully.

  Patrick frowned.

  ‘You’re not . . . ?’

  ‘No. But it makes you think, doesn’t it? I mean, look.’ She picked up a tiny red and white striped babygro. ‘It’s just adorable.’

  ‘Very nice. Now come on. Connie’s running round without a nappy on, remember.’

  Mandy hung the little outfit back up reluctantly.

  Patrick found himself staring at it.

  A baby.

  Why the hell hadn’t he thought of it sooner?

  Patrick had no concrete evidence, but he had a funny feeling that Mandy’s father wanted out of the brewery. After Keith Sherwyn had come on board, nearly five years ago now, things had gone swimmingly for a while. He had brought a much-needed lump sum and a significant amount of business acumen to the table.

  Now, they had run out of cash. Keith’s investment had allowed them to completely renovate and refurbish the Honeycote Arms, make a few long overdue improvements to the brewery itself and do some very basic running repairs to their other tied houses. They had just about managed to break even for the past two years, but now it was clear that if they wanted to move into substantial profit they would have to do for their other pubs what they had done for their flagship. Traditional pubs were all very well, but people expected tradition with a twist these days, not faded banquettes and the offer of a cheese and onion bap at lunchtime. Mod cons and luxury had become the norm; style and design were the buzzwords right down to the last knife and fork. And this couldn’t be brought about on a shoestring. A decent refurb was, on average, a hundred grand. To transform all their pubs into successful gastropubs like the Honeycote Arms meant a budget of more than a million quid.

  Realistically, they had three options.

  The easiest was to limp on as they were. Honeycote Ales itself sold a reasonable amount of beer, as the brew had a good reputation and a loyal following, albeit locally. The pubs had their established clientele, who weren’t big spenders but were regular enough to ensure a steady income stream. But they would only be prolonging the agony, postponing the day when the pubs finally fell into total disrepair and the ancient equipment gave up the ghost.

  The next option was to sell off a couple of pubs, giving them an instant injection of ready cash which they could then spread around the rest. But the Liddiards had always firmly resisted this path, as it diminished their property portfolio, and once you gave into that temptation where did you stop? The tied houses were their collateral, what made them millionaires on paper.

  Or they could sell up completely. They had offers all the time, from bigger breweries that would ha
ve the means to do everything needed to turn Honeycote Ales into a cash cow almost overnight. It would be tempting to take the money and run. But to Mickey and Patrick, that was anathema. Honeycote Ales had been in the Liddiard family since the middle of the nineteenth century. And even Keith, who had no such ties, had been drawn to the brewery in the first place because of what it represented - family values and age-old traditions. If he urged them to sell he would be hypocritical.

  But Patrick had sensed in him a certain malaise of late. Keith had been withdrawn and distracted. Never rude or uninterested, but he definitely had something on his mind. And the last time Mickey, in a moment of despondency when they had a quote in to underpin the subsiding Peacock Inn, had mooted flogging the whole lot, Keith hadn’t demurred. Which was tantamount to capitulation, in Patrick’s book. Keith was a fighter, bullish to the end. If even he was losing hope, well . . . then there wasn’t any. Patrick felt a tight ball of worry in his stomach when he thought about it. Keith could easily get rid of his share and walk away. He bloody well hoped he wouldn’t, but one of the first lessons Keith had taught him was not to be sentimental about business.

  Patrick knew he couldn’t manage without Keith on side. Keith was always calm. Practical. He didn’t mind facing problems head on. If Keith jumped ship, Patrick knew he wouldn’t be able to manage. He didn’t have the experience, the vision, the power of his own convictions that came with years of being hands on.

  And Mickey was useless. He just put his head in the sand. He didn’t have a fucking clue about business; he wouldn’t know a strategic alliance or an early adopter if he fell over it. Patrick might not be Alan Sugar, but he read the trade papers and surfed the internet religiously to see what their competitors were doing. Mickey didn’t even have an email address, and only just about knew how to go online. Some might think it was an affectation, a pretentious attempt to appear a Luddite, but Patrick knew it was pure laziness. If Mickey didn’t have an email address, then he didn’t have to deal with anything.

  Patrick sighed. Sometimes he thought he was a lucky sod. After all, not everyone was handed the chance to go into the family business. And a brewery was slightly glamorous and romantic. Everyone liked a drink, after all, and there was a history to Honeycote Ales that filled him with a sense of pride. He adored the old buildings, whose very bricks and floor-boards were suffused with the sweat of his forebears. It was one of the reasons why he was so desperately keen to hang on to the brewery and not see it slip out of the Liddiard family. It would be a crime against their heritage. People like them had a responsibility to the nation. If they didn’t fight tooth and nail to hold on to their history, the whole country would become homogenized, dominated by a handful of brand names, all the character wiped out and replaced with wipe-clean, EECCOMPLIANT machinery.

  At other times, however, Patrick wished fervently he’d never been handed this legacy, or had chosen to walk away from it when he’d left school, when he’d been free to make a choice. But a lack of academic qualifications had left him with few realistic alternatives, and now he was too firmly entrenched. He was emotionally attached, as well as financially beholden. And he had a genuine interest. He loved the pubs, their place in local society, the fact that everyone from the merest farmhand to the grandest landowner for miles around rubbed shoulders at the bar and drank thirstily from their pumps. He’d learnt a lot in the past four years, once he’d started taking his position seriously and hadn’t just spent his time drinking and womanizing.

  Now Patrick had a very clear vision of where Honeycote Ales should be headed. But he couldn’t do it without Keith. If Keith was disillusioned, if he had fallen out of love with Honeycote Ales - which he had every right to do, for he wasn’t a Liddiard and owed them no loyalty - then Patrick had to take steps to convince him to stay.

  If he married Mandy, then Keith would stay loyal to the brewery to protect his daughter’s interests. And if there was a baby too . . .

  Patrick emerged from the supermarket, blinking in the unexpectedly bright sunshine, swinging the carrier bag containing not just the nappies but a huge box of Belgian chocolates, a tub of Maltesers for the kids, a bottle of Bollinger - it was his dad’s birthday, after all, so they needed a toast - and a copy of the Eagles’ Greatest Hits. One of Mickey’s party tricks when drunk was a heartfelt rendition of ‘Hotel California’ but Patrick knew the cassette he’d had since the dawn of time was worn out from incessant rewinding. Now Lucy had put a state-of-the-art integrated sound system into the kitchen, they were gradually replacing all their favourite cassettes with CDs.

  The new kitchen was a further cause of anxiety for Patrick. Lucy’s extravagance was evidence that Mickey hadn’t even hinted to her that times were hard. Lucy wasn’t a spendthrift, but she’d thrown herself wholeheartedly into the project and hadn’t held back at all. Patrick knew that some of the invoices for materials and work still hadn’t been paid, and were sitting in the in-tray at the brewery office. Lucy would be horrified if she knew.

  Never mind, he thought. He wasn’t going to worry about unpaid bills today. He had a far more interesting item on his agenda.

  It was the first day to remotely resemble spring, so they put the top down on his Austin Healey. As they drove out of Eldenbury and along the road that led to Honeycote, Patrick turned his idea over in his mind. Today would be the ideal occasion to announce an engagement, he thought. He felt a flicker of excitement in his belly, and the corners of his mouth turned up.

  They reached the crest of Poachers Hill, with its dizzying view of Honeycote below. Patrick could see the church, the tower of the brewery and, if you followed the road carefully, the golden walls of Honeycote House peeping through the bare branches of the trees. In a month or so, when the trees were green, you wouldn’t be able to see it at all.

  He pulled over into the lay-by that served as a viewpoint for tourists. He switched off the engine and turned to Mandy, clearing his throat.

  ‘I’ve had an idea,’ he said casually. She looked at him quizzically, and he gazed at her for a moment, remembering the first time he had kissed her. He’d only done it to wind her up, wanting to punish her for transforming his sister Sophie into a total trollop for the ball they’d gone to that evening. Patrick had wanted to make it quite clear to Mandy that no one messed with his family without his say-so, that giving Sophie a cleavage and a fake tan and a ridiculous hairdo had been totally inappropriate. But as soon as their lips had met he had been lost. Tearing himself away from her, leaving her breathless and gasping and desperate for more, had been an act of iron will. In the process of teaching her a lesson, he’d fallen in love himself.

  She was smiling back at him now, the little dimple flickering in and out of the creamy flesh at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘What?’ She was intrigued. Patrick wasn’t one for ideas. He was never conspiratorial. But he was grinning at her, his ice-blue eyes, which could be so cold when he was displeased, sparkling in the sunshine.

  ‘I think we should get married.’

  Mandy blinked. Once. Twice.

  ‘It’s about time, don’t you think? We’ve lived together long enough. We love each other . . . don’t we?’

  Patrick looked at her, suddenly anxious. She burst out laughing. Patrick was rarely anxious or unsure of himself.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked indignantly.

  ‘You. You’re nervous! I’ve never seen you nervous.’

  ‘I’m not bloody nervous. I just . . .’

  Patrick trailed off, feeling foolish and exposed. He hadn’t expected Mandy to laugh at his proposal. Was it so ridiculous?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said stiffly. ‘I thought it was a logical step. Obviously I was wrong.’

  Mandy bit her lip, realizing he had mistaken her laughter for derision, not delirium.

  ‘I’m laughing because I’m happy, you idiot!’ She flung her arms around his neck. ‘I think it’s a fantastic idea. Of course I want to marry you.’

  Patrick fel
t the tension in his shoulders melt away at her touch. His worst fear was always ridicule; any suggestion that he was being laughed at or undermined meant the barriers went straight up. But now he knew he’d misunderstood, relief flooded through him and he managed a smile.

  ‘Good.’

  She frowned. ‘You do mean . . . soon, don’t you? You’re not just going to ask me and then make me wait for ages and ages?’>

  ‘Of course not,’ said Patrick.

  ‘And we don’t want a fuss, do we?’ she asked anxiously. ‘A nice service in the church, of course. And then everyone back to the house for lunch.’

  That was what he loved about her. She might love her labels and her shopping, and she might spend an inordinate amount of time on her appearance, but Mandy was surprisingly down to earth. Anyone looking at her would think she’d want the full works: Sudeley Castle, an army of bridesmaids, vintage cars, a Robbie Williams lookalike to serenade her. But it seemed not.

  ‘Everyone makes too much fuss about weddings these days,’ she went on. ‘I think it would be much more fun to keep it low key. Though obviously . . .’ she leaned forward with a mischievous smile. ‘I want a fuck-off dress.’

  Patrick pulled her to him, suddenly turned on by the fact that here they were, engaged.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ he murmured, his voice hoarse with desire. ‘Let’s do it as soon as we can.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to get married in May.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Patrick. ‘That quickly?’

  ‘Why not?’ Her eyes were shining with excitement. ‘The longer you have to wait, the more of a nightmare it becomes. If we’ve only got a few weeks to plan it, it can’t get too complicated. And if anyone can’t make it, they can’t make it. But Sophie and Ned will be back from Australia by then—’

  Patrick suddenly looked at her, aghast.